California and the Western United States are leading a nationwide surge in interracial marriage, according to a new study that paints a picture of a broadly diversifying nation, one where color lines are blurring and old taboos fading. One-fifth of all recent weddings in the western United States were between people of different races or ethnicities, said a report being released today by the Pew Research Center. Nationwide, 15% of recent marriages were interracial, researchers found.

Between now and July, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on two cases dealing with same-sex marriage: one testing the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, the other involving the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage for federal purposes as the union of a man and a woman. Oral arguments in the court last week raised the disheartening possibility that a majority of the court may be unwilling at this time to extend to same-sex marriages the constitutional protection it afforded to interracial marriages four decades ago. Of course, questions and comments from the justices don't necessarily predict how they will vote; sometimes they think aloud and play devil's advocate.

A white Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, said it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. "I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell said. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom.

Who's the bigger flip-flopper on same-sex marriage, Mitt Romney or President Obama? When it comes to hot-button issues like this one, both politicians appear to have tailored their views according to the political winds -- but that doesn't mean they don't have fundamental differences, particularly as each man's position has "evolved. " Obama's evolution took explosive form last week when he announced on ABC's "Good Morning America" that he thinks "same-sex couples should be able to get married.

In a challenge to the government of President Pieter W. Botha and his gradual reforms of South Africa's apartheid policies, two right-wing political parties are mounting a campaign to retain laws that ban interracial marriages and sexual relations.

Alabama lawmakers have approved an amendment to the state constitution that would eliminate the nation's last remaining ban on interracial marriages. The amendment will take effect if approved by voters in a special election Oct. 12. The proposal was approved by the state House in April and by the Senate on Tuesday without dissent. "It sends a good message across this country that Alabama is not as backwards as some people think it is," said the legislation's sponsor, Democratic Rep.

Re "Mixed Couples: What Are the Issues You Have to Deal With?" Voices, Aug. 8: I am a Heinz-57 American of Irish/Scandinavian/French descent and my husband is African American. We have raised six children. The issues that have arisen during our 20-plus years are far outweighed by questions we have been asked like: "What's it like being married to a black man?" "Do these children belong to both of you?" "Did you meet your husband in the U.S.?" etc. I often tell people that love sees no color.

The San Francisco ceremony celebrating the domestic partnerships of 165 gay and lesbian couples (March 26) demonstrates more than true love in the face of adversity. It clearly illustrates that a second class of citizenship is alive and well in our democracy. Without the opportunity to participate in marriage, lesbians and gays are denied hundreds of rights and benefits automatically extended to heterosexual couples who choose to wed. This policy is as shameful an example of discrimination as the laws once banning interracial marriages in our country.

It was a Sunday. Through the crowd of departing parishioners, the pastor eluded her through one door; she chased after him through another. Her voice was quiet, firm and full of fury. "I demand to be counseled," Ruth Bryant White told the Rev. Tom Wolf, pastor of The Church on Brady in East Los Angeles, one of the city's most ethnically diverse Baptist churches. The preacher already had spoken to her future husband, Steve White.

February 28, 2000 | DAVID O. COOLIDGE, David O. Coolidge directs the Marriage Law Project, based in Washington, D.C

Californians are playing out a drama whose outcome will be applauded and reviled from coast to coast. By the end of the day March 7, Proposition 22--which states that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California"--will be either law or history. If it wins, some people will claim this is the beginning of the end for gay rights. If it loses, other people will claim this is the beginning of the end for marriage. Could both sides be wrong?

Re "Obama takes a stand for gay marriage," May 10 Iwas 13 when I first considered the same-sex marriage "dilemma. " I was a Catholic school student, yet even then I could not find the moral (let alone legal) reason by which two consenting adults should not be allowed to marry. Each religion can define the issue's spiritual validity. However, morally and legally, marriage is a common right. Three years ago, I married a wonderful Mexican American man. As recently as 1967, laws that prohibited interracial marriages such as ours were still constitutionally legal in the United States.

A quarter-century ago, 65% of Americans thought interracial marriage was unacceptable for themselves or for other people. Yet in the span of a generation, as intermarriage has become more common and the United States has grown more racially diverse, a dramatic change in attitudes has taken place. Today, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 87% of Americans say that the rise in interracial marriage has either been good for society or made no difference, while only 11% think it's a change for the worse.

California and the Western United States are leading a nationwide surge in interracial marriage, according to a new study that paints a picture of a broadly diversifying nation, one where color lines are blurring and old taboos fading. One-fifth of all recent weddings in the western United States were between people of different races or ethnicities, said a report being released today by the Pew Research Center. Nationwide, 15% of recent marriages were interracial, researchers found.

It's been so long, I can't even remember what the column was about or how I'd drawn the ire of the reader who mailed me in response. She was — like me — black, middle-aged and middle-class, and she disagreed vehemently with whatever I'd said that week. She threw down the gauntlet with her closing remark: "I can tell; you're one of those women with a white boyfriend. " I was pleased to be able to rally back: "My boyfriend is black. " Take that. But I was also grateful that her challenge hadn't come the year before.

In 1948, the idea of interracial marriage in the United States was almost unimaginable. The few polls on this topic at the time showed that Americans were nearly unanimous in their disapproval of it. There is little evidence that Californians felt any different. Yet that year saw the legalization of interracial marriage in California ? not because voters approved it or because legislators supported it but because California's courts ruled that banning it violated the U.S. Constitution.

We may be in the midst of an interracial baby boom. A recent Pew Research Center study reported that interracial marriages rose from 6.7% in 1980 to a record 14.6% in 2008. If these marriages produce children at the national average, one out of seven Americans could claim two or more races. In Western states where interracial marriage is more common, the ratio rises to nearly one out of four. The day will arrive when this interracial generation reaches political consciousness and finds itself at odds with America's divisive identity politics.

Who's the bigger flip-flopper on same-sex marriage, Mitt Romney or President Obama? When it comes to hot-button issues like this one, both politicians appear to have tailored their views according to the political winds -- but that doesn't mean they don't have fundamental differences, particularly as each man's position has "evolved. " Obama's evolution took explosive form last week when he announced on ABC's "Good Morning America" that he thinks "same-sex couples should be able to get married.

Re "Obama takes a stand for gay marriage," May 10 Iwas 13 when I first considered the same-sex marriage "dilemma. " I was a Catholic school student, yet even then I could not find the moral (let alone legal) reason by which two consenting adults should not be allowed to marry. Each religion can define the issue's spiritual validity. However, morally and legally, marriage is a common right. Three years ago, I married a wonderful Mexican American man. As recently as 1967, laws that prohibited interracial marriages such as ours were still constitutionally legal in the United States.

A white Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, said it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. "I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell said. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom.

For marrying the only man she ever loved, Mildred Loving paid a price: She was arrested, convicted and banished from her home state. In the 1950s, the Commonwealth of Virginia handed down such punishments to couples whose love the state did not sanction: She was black. Her husband, Richard, was white. Their union was prohibited by law. The marriage could have collapsed under the hammer of Jim Crow. Instead, the Lovings' challenge of the law led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1967 that toppled bans on interracial marriages nationwide and opened the door for mixed race couples to marry without prosecution.